PayLane Announces Automatic Payment Optimizer System

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Polish PayLane tells us that they have launched a service called Automatic Payment Optimizer (APO), which is designed to simplify transactions for international e-commerce firms. We initially wrote about PayLane in mid-March, but now we are able to re-visit the Gdansk-based firm and report on this new service that they’ve launched. In order to find out more about APO and what PayLane has been up to, I spoke with Ula Lachowicz, brand manager for the firm.

As Lachowicz tells me, the APO system is designed to smooth the processing of e-commerce transactions. When a customer makes a payment, the funds move from the original website through the payment system to the bank account of the retailer. However, sometimes there are issues with the payment process because banks may perform maintenance or have temporary trouble, they may not accept certain cards or currencies, or customers make purchases from merchants located far away (and they tell us that banks might sometimes suspect fraud in cases involves purchases made over long distances). As a result, APO aims to correct this issue by grouping together all bank accounts for a particular merchant and sending payments to any bank willing to accept it. If banks reject the payment, the system moves to the next bank until they receive a positive match. As the name suggests, the system does not require management by the business-owner and takes a few seconds to work. Potential benefits of the system include being able to divide money between accounts, being able to avoid fees by putting money into various accounts, and avoiding maintenance/other troubles that banks might encounter.

As we previously wrote, PayLane was developed as a project within Implix and was spun off in 2011 as a separate business. As a result, they do not have external investors and maintain nearly 1,500 accounts. Thus far this year, they have won in the “Best E-Commerce” at the 2013 TNW Polish Awards, launched their Developer Zone and offered an API, and became an official Payment Institution (in addition to already being a Payment Service Provider). It’s unclear as to how many institutions will adopt APO, but Lachowicz says that they believe that it’s an innovative service and will likely be used by international e-commerce retailers.Follow @goaleurope